AN: This chapter is dedicated to Cynical Slytherin – the 200th person to add me to their fav. Authors list – and to Jaded Angel8, the 200th reviewer!

Also! Congrats to my cousin, Ryan, who's band put together a CD. They are also on the radio – any New Zealand readers, look out for the 'Ryan and Dan Rock Show', every Tuesday night 7:30-9:30 on the station 'The Mulcher' fm. The band is called Charcoaled, last I heard.

And now, the much awaited, Chapter THIRTEEN! *grins* enjoy!

In Every Darkness

Chapter Twelve: Meditation

(18.7.1996)(Night)

"Nice room you've got here," Tatsu remarked, looking around Harry's room.

 "Thanks," Harry muttered, slightly embarrassed. He'd never shown anyone his room before … Well, except for Ron, Fred and George, but that wasn't really showing them …

 "I now fully understand why you dislike your relatives. Do they even know that you're the one that stopped Voldemort? Even if he has come back… Even if they do, I expect they wouldn't care," Tatsu remarked.

 Harry turned to Tatsu sharply. "You're a wizard?" He asked, clearly surprised.

 "No, but I know all about the wizarding world, and Muggles, and squibs and all that sort of thing," Tatsu replied with a shrug. "I would rather not say how I know if it, merely that I do."

 "Oh," Harry replied, still a little surprised. "So how did you get up here?"

 "I am a master of many arts, Harry, among them forms of Japanese combat. There are some exercises where running up sheer walls are part of the easier training. It wasn't that difficult," Tatsu shrugged.

 "Oh," Harry said again, feeling stupid because he couldn't think of anything else to say.

 "Glad you thought of the phone call to get me out of there in case I needed an escape route," Tatsu added, taking out the toy mobile phone that he'd been carrying. Laughing slightly, he pressed one of the keys, and immediately the phone 'rang'.

 Harry laughed also. "You're welcome. I wouldn't inflict my relatives on Death Eaters unless I was feeling particularly mean."

 "I dunno," Tatsu said, pretending to take Harry's words seriously. They both laughed. "Won't this attract the attention of your relatives?" Tatsu asked after a moment. "Oh, silly me, of course not. You've got a silencer charm up, don't you?"

 Harry was amazed. How could Tatsu know that? "Yeah," he admitted. "But how did you know?"
 "Call it intuition," Tatsu shrugged. Harry knew that he would get no more answers out of his new friend. "Oh, Harry?"

 "Yeah?" Harry asked, curious to what Tatsu might want.

 "I feel that I should give you something in return for the help you've been given me," Tatsu said.

 "It's alright," Harry said immediately. "I don't want anything in return."

 "I've been living in Japan for most of my life, Harry. Japanese people are very serious about things like this, and by the customs that I know and respect, I must give you something in return. It came to me just before, as to what that could possibly be."

 "What are you suggesting?" Harry asked.

 "I'll start to teach you at least some of the martial arts. I don't know if you'll have any talent for it or not, but it would be useful for you to know, I think. Especially with the Death Eaters back in business," Tatsu told Harry. "That is, if you want to learn."

 "I … Yeah! If you want to teach me, sure I want to learn!" Harry said, surprised that this man would offer him anything.

 Tatsu smiled. "We can start tomorrow, once we've finished painting the kitchen," he told Harry. "I'll see you for a jog in the morning, shall I?"
 "I'll be there," Harry promised, and Tatsu nodded, heading back out of the window with a graceful ease.

 Harry smiled slightly, watching his friend and new mentor leave his room. So that was why Tatsu had been surprised that Harry had heard him coming.

 "Well Hedwig, that was a very good night," Harry addressed his owl, patting her head gently. Hedwig hooted and rubbed her head against his hand.

 Not for the first time, Harry wondered how much his owl understood of what he told her, and not for the first time decided that it didn't matter.

 Harry walked back over to his bed and settled down with The Fellowship of the Ring once more, until he drifted into sleep. He did not dream that night, that he could remember, and woke much refreshed, at five in the morning.

 Harry sat upright on his bed and concentrated on creating a mind shield like the one he made in his dreams. He focused on keeping it up and strong, but the moment his attention drifted, the shield evaporated.

 With a sigh, Harry got up and went downstairs to begin his morning ritual.

 Entering Tatsu's entrance hall, Harry was almost overwhelmed by the stench of estapol (it's a wood-finishing clear paint that STINKS). "I've done half the hall," Tatsu explained with a sigh. "And I would like to get it over with as soon as possible."

 "Right, where do I start?" Harry asked. He knew exactly how to paint, having painted the garden shed at the Dursley's, as well as the fence, numerous times.

 Tatsu told him and the pair of them set to work. It was not long before the hall was finished. "Well done! You've done this before?" Tatsu asked him.

 Harry looked up. "Yeah. Every time the Dursley's decided the shed, the garden fence or the bench needed a new colour," he said, shrugging slightly.

 "You should not have had to live through that," Tatsu remarked. "But past is past, and whether you should have lived it or not is irrelevant. Only that you did."

 "Is that something the Japanese taught you?" Harry asked curiously.

 "It was my sensei's favourite saying," Tatsu replied. "Come to the kitchen, tomorrow we can start painting there, but for today, we'll leave it at this."

 "I can help then. I need something to do with my time," Harry offered.

 "If you want to, the help would be appreciated," Tatsu smiled at his young friend. "But now, why don't you return home?" Harry nodded and left Tatsu to do his own thing.

 When he got back to his room in Privet Drive, he realised that he hadn't asked Tatsu about being trained.

 "Oh well, I'm sure he'll tell me when he wants me to start," Harry remarked with a sigh, taking out his wand to begin the afternoons practice.

 Just as the sun was going down, he heard a knock on the window, and when he turned saw Tatsu knocking to be let in.
 Laughing, Harry went over and opened the window, allowing the man to come inside.

 "I thought I'd head over and give you your first lesson," Tatsu said, grinning at the look of excitement on Harry's face. "But we aren't going to be doing any actual combat for some time."

 Harry's face fell. "What are we going to do?"

 "I'm going to teach you meditation, so that you can focus all of your emotions on fighting. You need to be in control of your emotions, not the other way around. That's the first thing you have to learn."

 Harry looked at Tatsu – that was almost exactly what Sirius had told him. Well, in so far as being in control of his emotions. "Ok, how do I start?" he asked curiously.

 "Get into a comfortable position – preferably sitting up," Tatsu said, he himself knelt on the floor, feet tucked beneath him, Harry took up a position on the bed with his back against the wall.

 "Now, concentrate on breathing and clearing your mind," Tatsu said, and Harry was reminded, momentarily, of Professor Trelawney. But Tatsu made things a lot easier than Trelawney ever had.

 Slowly, Harry's breathing fell into rhythm, and soon his head began to empty of thoughts. He couldn't get rid of them all though, which frustrated him, which made him lose his concentration.

 Tatsu looked up and him and smiled, his face almost dreamy. It was clear that the man was devoid of emotion and thought at the moment. "Try again. But don't try too hard. With practice, it will come," Tatsu instructed him, his voice coming from millions of miles away.

 Harry did this, trying once more to empty his mind and breath. But again, he ended up losing concentration, this time because Tatsu moved.

 "You're doing good," Tatsu told him. "And with practice, you'll get better. We can practice at my place after jogging from now on, if you like."

 "That would be great," Harry responded, smiling.

 "I'll see you in the morning," Tatsu offered, and slipped out of the window, heading back to his own home.

 Harry smiled. "That was fun," he said to no one in particular. "I'm not sure why, but it was fun."

 The day creeping up on him, Harry lay down on the bed and drifted into a deep, soothing sleep.

 "Hey there Harry! How are you?" Sirius appeared at Harry's side, the pair of them standing on the kind of tropical island that could exist only in a dream.

 "Great!" Harry responded enthusiastically.

 "What have you been doing?" Sirius asked curiously.

 "Helping our new neighbour move in," Harry replied, smiling. "He's great!"

 Immediately Sirius was suspicious. "Who is he? Does the Order know?"

 "Yeah, the Order knows. The woman that was watching over me on the day I met him seemed to think he was ok. His name is Tatsu Kendo," Harry replied, shrugging.

 "Tatsu Kendo?" Sirius repeated, looking shocked.

 Harry blinked. "What? You know him?" he asked, surprised.

 "I do, yeah. But I can't tell you why, not if you don't know already," Sirius responded.

 "Why not?" Harry demanded, angry.

 "Because Tatsu Kendo doesn't like it when people talk about him and he doesn't know about it. If he hasn't talked to you yet, then he wants to wait for something before he does. Even though I'm dead, I respect his wishes," Sirius replied.

 Harry sighed. "Does everyone but me know who he is?" he asked no one in particular.

 "A lot of people know the glorified versions of the truth, or some of them, but there are very few who know the truth, and all of the truth," Sirius replied, shrugging. "He's something of a legend."

 "Oh," Harry said, disappointed that he wasn't getting anything out of his godfather.

 "What have you been doing with Tatsu?" Sirius asked him, after a few moments of silence.

 "Oh, this and that," Harry replied, shrugging slightly. "We met up jogging one day, and I offered to help him get organised, since he moved in next door," Harry explained to Sirius was had been happening lately.

 "Tatsu Kendo is teaching you? You're lucky – he must trust you a lot though," Sirius remarked.

 "What do you mean?" Harry demanded, getting a little annoyed that his godfather continually mentioned things he 'couldn't say anything about'.

 "He doesn't pass his skills on lightly," Sirius responded. "He only will if he believes completely that you are on the light side, and even then, you have to befriend him. If he hadn't trusted you, he would have probably given you money or some small possession of his in thanks."

 "Oh," Harry said. "I didn't think he liked me that much, but he is fun to hang around with."

 Sirius smiled. "I can see that if I keep going on about Tatsu, you're going to kill me, so how about we practice Occlumency?"

 "How about we do some duelling tonight?" Harry suggested instead. "I've been practicing, and I'd like to see what you could show me, I mean, you must have been able to do a lot of spells!"

 Sirius laughed. "Ok, what have you been doing?"

 Harry told him, and Sirius offered to have a small duel, with Sirius restricting himself to easy spells so that Harry wouldn't get hurt.

 "Don't you need a wand?" Harry asked curiously.

 "Nope, I don't need one here," Sirius replied. "Alright, bow," he added.

 Harry bowed and raised his wand. "Stupefy!" he yelled as his godfather straightened and motioned for him to begin.

 Sirius blocked it easily and retaliated with a tickling charm, which Harry dodged.

 The fight went on for what seemed like hours, until Harry began to wake. Distracted, he allowed Sirius to disarm him, and called goodbye to his godfather before he was pulled from the dream back into the waking world.

****

Wonder what's going to happen tomorrow. *grins* I know, but you don't! LoL. Review please!

~WolfMoon~